Little Miss Sunshine in CA, Pt. 1

It was a case of perfect timing - just when I needed my bestie of 30+ years most, Christy (aka Little Miss Sunshine) came to visit me in California. It had been seven years since we’d last hung out in person, but it was as if no time had passed at all. Some say she’s the Grace to my Will, but since I never really cared for the Grace Adler character (self-centered, whiny, and obnoxious), I will skip that comparison and just say I am grateful to still have her in my life! Faithful readers of my blog will not be surprised to find out that the first stop for us when she arrived was Station Tavern for a “light snack” of their legendary tater tots. For Christy, it was love at first bite. 



And because it’s all about the food, our next event was dinner at Sonny’s in University Heights, one of my new faves.



This is the go-to place when my friend Kevin and I grab dinner, so he tagged along for the ride and got to meet Christy. With Kevin, it’s typically a text at 6pm-ish: “Sonny's?” Nothing else needs to be said other than “yes” or “no.” Back to Sunshine…of course she enjoyed the Pepp Rolls.



I really love the vibe of this place, and so do Kevin & Christy!



The dessert options at Sonny’s are meh, so we headed over to Jeni’s afterwards.





The next morning, Christy had her first addictive taste of the vanilla bean lattés at Communal Coffee in South Park:



Making ourselves more presentable, we drove over the bridge to Coronado Island into Nirvana, aka Little Frenchie’s:



In the early years of our friendship, this is what we did:



Now we sample French pastries. A much better choice!



We kind of walked off the calories with a stroll along the beach in front of the Hotel del Coronado:



…just like Marilyn Monroe did in 1959 for “Some Like it Hot.”



A cute tiki sand sculpture:



Inside the Hotel del was this display with pieces related to Frank Baum and his Oz books:



Christy had never seen the Crown Room before. That wooden ceiling is GOR-GEOUS!



The prices of gas in Indiana looked much better after Christy saw what they were in San Diego!



We attempted to catch a movie at Coronado’s Village Theatre, but unbeknownst to me it had shut down and was undergoing a change in ownership. Nothing like a dinner at San Diego’s best Italian restaurant, Il Posto, to make things better!







Until the next meal…this concludes Pt. 1 of Little Miss Sunshine’s California visit!
 
See more of my photos at my main website.

The Hotel del Coronado: Reality vs. Set

The Hotel del Coronado in San Diego has proudly heralded its association with the 1959 Marilyn Monroe movie, “Some Like it Hot.” Many scenes were actually filmed at the hotel and the nearby beach. When Sweet Sue’s band arrives in Florida, the bus is actually dropping them off at the Hotel del. Above Marilyn is on the porch with Tony Curtis (in drag) and below, Jack Lemmon (also in drag) gets assistance from an older wealthy millionaire (Joe E. Brown):



The shot below is also from the entrance area to the del, circa 1959, with Tony & Marilyn.



You can try to match up the shots at the hotel today but it would be difficult as the building has gone under many renovations since the 1959 movie. This was how it looked under construction during its most recent remodel in 2021:



How the hotel looked in 1950, pre-Marilyn:



Compared to this 2021 remodel shot:



One brilliant comic bit between Lemmon, Curtis (doing his best Cary Grant imitation), and Marilyn was shot on the beach behind the hotel:



This trio of July 1962 gals were on the very same beach. Wonder if they realized they were standing exactly where Lemmon, Curtis, and Monroe had been?



Tony and Marilyn share a kiss on the steps of the hotel when he drops her off after their first date. In real like, Tony’s infamous quote about kissing Marilyn when asked how it was replied, “It’s like kissing Hitler.” Years later, he attempted to say he had no malice towards Marilyn, but was making a joke. Whether that was true or not, his remark fell flat.



Towards the end of the movie, Curtis and Lemmon attempt to escape the mob by running through the Hotel’s lobby, which was shot on a soundstage:



How the lobby looked in March 2008:



…and August 2012:



…and this year:



Have you been to the del?

See more “Some Like it Hot” photos at my main website.

Tuna, Star Trek, Marilyn, and Project Runway

How do you combine Tuna, Star Trek, Marilyn Monroe, and Project Runway all into one post? If you’re asking, you’re apparently new to the Daveland rabbit holes. Welcome aboard! While doing my usual dinner on the couch with Willis and a movie/TV show, I put my Star Trek season one discs into the blu ray player. Watching the episode “Charlie X” (September 15, 1966) caused me to wonder what happened to Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Janice Rand. She is pictured above with Robert Walker, Jr. (son of Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones), who played Charlie. She was a more than capable actress and her chemistry with Kirk (William Shatner) seemed like it could have generated some interesting story lines. And yet, she disappeared before the first season was over. The official reason was that producer Roddenberry didn’t want to limit Kirk’s romantic adventures to Rand; the real reason was more rooted in budgetary concerns. In looking her up, I discovered an amazing (to me, at least) tidbit: Grace Lee Whitney was the original model for the Chicken of the Sea mermaid!



From the Chicken of the Sea website:

The first products sold under the Chicken of the Sea brand appeared in 1930. A little over 20 years later, in 1952, our mermaid mascot made her debut. The original illustration, with her tall blonde beehive and button nose, was modeled after Grace Lee Whitney—the actress who played Yeoman Janie Rand on the original Star Trek series. Over the decades, the mermaid has changed up her hairstyle and even the color of her tail, but her blonde hair and wand (or, most recently, her trident) have remained fixtures of her look.

She made radio show appearances with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy wearing the mermaid suit and a ton-o-hair! As she recalled:

Even though “Bergen and McCarthy” was radio, we did the show on a stage before a large studio audience, so the visual part of the show was still important. It was important that the mermaid who sang the tuna jingle look the part. Because I couldn’t walk in that costume, stagehands had to pick me up and carry me out onstage. I would sing the commercial, then they’d pick me up and carry me off again as I waved my wand to the audience.

She even had a doll modeled after; that’s how you know you’ve made it big!



All good things must come to an end, and in 2023, Chicken of the Sea changed their mermaid. Where was the outcry?!?



To think that at Disneyland, there was a Star Trek connection! The Mermaid on the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship restaurant was originally painted in all gold:





Eventually, she got the full-color treatment, as seen in this October 1966 image:





She could also be found on the bow of the ship:



When Chicken of the Sea left as a sponsor, the mermaid was turned into a ginger:



Finally, in a move of economy, she was converted back to all-gold again. No real craftsmanship needed to upkeep that!



Back to Grace…

She also had a bit part in one of my favorite Marilyn Monroe movies, “Some Like It Hot” (1959). As a member of the all-girl band, she can be seen at far left, along with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn.



And finally, the Project Runway connection. When I was looking at Grace’s hair in high definition during the “Star Trek” episodes, I couldn’t help but think it looked familiar. As Whitney later recalled:

It was so heavy it kept listing to the left, I swear they had to nail that thing to my head! It was gorgeous Max Factor hair. It cost a lot of money and somebody stole it. I still have visions of that damn wig turning up. I go down to Skid Row for my recovery program - I'm clean and sober now - and I keep expecting to find some bag lady or drag queen wearing it!



I’m not sure where the wig ended up, but it surely was the inspiration for this outfit from Project Runway, season 5, episode 7, where designer Korto Mormolu wove car seatbelts together to create a coat.



And there you have it. Another rabbit hole completed. I’ll leave this post with Whitney’s 2015 obituary from the ​​​Hollywood Reporter:

Grace Lee Whitney, who played the loyal Janice Rand, the personal assistant who served Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) aboard the USS Enterprise during the first season of Star Trek, has died. She was 85. Whitney, who reprised her role as Rand in four Star Trek films and in a 1996 episode of Star Trek: Voyager, died Friday at her home in Coarsegold, Calif., her son told The Fresno Bee. The attractive blond also appeared in two Billy Wilder films that starred Jack Lemmon: 1959’s Some Like It Hot (as one of the members of the all-girl band) and as Kiki the Cossack in 1963’s Irma la Douce. There was much sexual tension between Whitney’s Yeoman Rand and Shatner’s Kirk as the actress appeared in eight of the first 13 episodes of the 1966-69 NBC space drama. But then she suddenly was released from her contract. “There was a scene that Shatner and I did — and I remember when it happened — that scared the producers, because they said, ‘Uh-oh, they’re getting too close. This is getting too hot,’” she recalled in a 2011 interview. “We have to remove her because he’s going to look like he’s cheating when he falls in love with other women on other planets.” Whitney wrote in her 1998 book, The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, that she was sexually assaulted by an executive at Desilu, the production company behind Star Trek, and suffered from drug and alcohol abuse for years before turning her life around.

See more pop culture photos at my main website.

Coronado Construction

Willis was feeling a little cooped up from a year of quarantine, so we went to Coronado Island yesterday for a stroll along the beach. It had been quite some time since I'd been to this area, and I was surprised to see quite a bit of construction at the entrace to the Hotel del Coronado, one of the historic landmarks of San Diego.

The beachside of the hotel also had some construction fences up, but that didn’t seem to deter tourists/guests who were enjoying the good weather.

This is the same hotel where Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe cavorted on the beach in the classic Billy Wilder comedy “Some Like It Hot” (1959).

The Hotel’s website has this information somewhat hidden at the bottom of the "what to expect" page:

• Fitness Center (opening early 2021, if health regulations allow)
• Windsor Lawn on the beach side of the Victorian building (opening July 2021)
• Ice House Museum (opening by summer 2021, if health regulations allow)
• Lower level retail shops (opening late spring 2021; The Signature Shop and Brady’s for Men are open off the Garden Patio)
• Victorian lobby, front porch, and south entrance drive and walking paths (opening by summer 2021)
• Ocean Towers guestrooms (reopening as The Views, July 2021)
• 142 new residential rooms and suites, and a conference center on the south end of the resort (opening summer 2022)

I’m most curious to see if they put the Victorian lobby back to its original splendor; currently owned by Hilton, the lobby has definitely been “dumbed down” over the years. Not surprisingly, they are doing lots of new construction (residential rooms and suites and the conference center) which might help them actually turn a profit.

Willis enjoyed the beach; it had been too long since his last dipping of the paw into the tide!

See more Coronado Island photos at my main website.